'Does
the aspiration to eliminate disability through genetic technology necessarily
denigrate the disabled as people?'

Duleep
Allirajah, disability policy analyst, explained to the uninitiated how,
contrary to the medical model, campaigners insist that people are 'disabled
by society not their bodies'. To this end, remedies (rather than treatments
or cures) are sought at the level of policy, adapting the built-environment
or workplace, and lobbying for anti-discrimination measures.

Josephine
Quintavalle, who's founder of Comment on Reproductive Ethics and is
sympathetic to the social model, suggested that society makes value-judgements,
which send out the message that 'we don't like disability and we'd like
to get rid of it'. Looking at how prospective parents are dealt with,
Quintaville spoke of the bias in the health system, in that it fails
to provide balanced information on the choices available. Her main criticism
was that rather than explaining the prognosis and implications for bringing
up a disabled child, the health system presumes abortion would be the
likeliest option.

Quintavalle
clearly believes that the pro-cure camp is eugenicist; she refused to
entertain the notion that a woman's choice to abort is qualitatively
different to enforced sterilisation. Rather she stressed that women's
rights with regards to their own bodies are being eroded.

On the
contrary, argued a member of the audience, doctors want to eliminate
disease and most women want a healthy child; for Allirajah, the impositions
of health professionals and counsellors were more likely to compromise
parents' decisions. And anyway, people are more than capable of distinguishing
between the decision over whether or not to raise a child with a disability,
and the dignity afforded to disabled people. He was critical of the
failure of the likes of Quintavalle to do the same. Ironically, he argued,
rather than 'seeing the person behind the disability', campaigners regard
advances in biotechnology as an 'attack on their very essence'. Surely,
this amounts to identification with the disability, to the detriment
of the individual. As Allirajah noted, 'pain, fatigue [and] incontinence'
are not the kind of experiences anyone should want to celebrate.

As if
to reinforce this impression, Quintavalle expressed concern that, despite
the poor success rate of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), sooner
or later the technique would be refined. This was not only discriminatory
(part of a 'search and kill' mindset), but encouraged the notion of
the child as commodity. Quintavalle questioned how it is possible on
the one hand to be accepting of surplus embryos, and yet on the other,
say 'if I want it, it's very precious'. This, as a contributor from
the floor noted, demonstrated the 'pro-life' strand to Quintavalle's
argument.

One audience
member pointed out that the debate was only of significance to a small
minority of the disabled population anyway. Allirajah agreed, adding
that disability is predominantly associated with the ageing process.
Ironically, argued another, the young disabled are often more independent
than their able-bodied 'stay at home' counterparts. The fact that they
are no longer incarcerated in long-stay hospitals, as Allirajah put
it, and that they have a much greater prominence in public life now,
was evidence enough of their much improved position in society.

The attempt
by some campaigners to define people with disabilities as a distinct
cultural group is mistaken. The arguments presented by Quintavalle are
not only demeaning for the disabled, but for society as a whole, reducing
what it means to be human, and closing off the potential to overcome
the kinds of debilitating conditions they endure.